The Madness Behind 1/4/2010 And Why...
Alright, we're four days out from "the date". Whoa, let me rewind first and give you the catalyst behind why every fanboy this side of Secaucus is getting ready to jizz on the first Monday of the New Year.
Ten years ago. January 4th, 1999.
At this time, yours truly was under the employ of Uncle Sam in the United States Navy. I can tell you where I was when Raw and Nitro was on, what I was eating (Pepperoni Pizza) and drinking (2 liter soda). In any event, this night lives in infamy for wrestling fans for quite a few reasons.
1) This was the night when the WWE took control of the "Monday Night Wars" and never relinquished it.
1B) This was the night when WCW finally paid for its arrogance and actually gave the fans something to watch. Sadly for them, it wasn't their own product.
2) It made Mick Foley's career in more ways than one and he didn't have to fall onto a single explosive, get put through a table or even lose half a body part to get it.
There are more, but those are the three that you most need to concern yourself with for the context of this rant. WCW at this point was starting to lose steam in its ongoing battle with the WWE for viewers on Monday Night. On this evening, the main event on Nitro was supposed to have been WCW World Champion Kevin Nash versus the previously unbeaten WCW World Champion Goldberg. A rematch of their battle at Starrcade 98 (underwhelming to say the least) which ended in controversy thanks to Scott Hall's interference with a cattle prod. During the course of the evening, Tony Schiavone leaked the main event for Raw that evening, a WWE Title match between WWE Champion The Rock and Mick Foley/Mankind. Going as far as to say...
"They're going to put the WWE Title on Mick Foley...yeah, that'll put butts in the seats."
Irony is a beautiful thing, isn't it? Stories vary, but somewhere along the line after Tony put the punctuation on that sentence...the dominoes started falling and the nuts began coming undone for WCW. See, as fans were tuning out to watch Mick win his first WWE Championship, the wheels were in motion for one of MANY clusterfucked swerves by WCW. Swerves that nobody outside of those involved (and even then you're really pushing it) wanted to see. Anyway, while we were assured of Foley winning the WWE Title on Raw, we had no idea what was going down on Nitro. See, Goldberg ended up getting arrested for harrassing Miss Elizabeth. As Goldberg was getting hauled off, Nash came out wondering what was going on. Outside already was Hollywood Hogan, leader of nWo Hollywood who couldn't help but laugh at Goldberg's misfortune. Of course, it was Goldberg who unseated Hogan as WCW World Champion and more or less helped contribute to Hogan's eventual sabbatical from WCW during the latter half of 1998 after Halloween Havoc. Nash, pissed about Hogan (these two ended up splitting about midway through 1998 leading to the grand rift with the nWo) laughing at one's misfortune called him out. As best as I can recollect, Hogan turned em' down as he was there on political business.
Look, long story short, Goldberg ended up getting cut loose after Elizabeth's story didn't hold water. Hogan's hand was forced into action seeing as he was still under contract with WCW. So we got our main event, a much anticipated clash with founding father of the nWo Kevin Nash going one on one with the man who ended up taking the reigns and running with it...Hollywood Hulk Hogan. Hulk came out with his "Lieutenant" Scott Steiner, who he left in charge while he was gone and Nash came out with...Scott Hall. His brother from another Caucasian mother. I won't exactly bore you with the details, because the match is fairly boring. I mean, how much excitement can you pull from a fingerpoke, an overly dramatic non-European flop and a 3 count followed by much celebration from all four men?
Understand why WCW went under after this date, now? WWE took its momentum from this date and didn't look back. It kept creating new stars, cranking out epic storylines that kept you tuned in and gave you great matches on free TV. WCW on the other hand, subjected us to Flair becoming the head honcho and slowly turning heel, while giving us more nWo beatdowns as Hogan reigned over WCW for the first two and a half months of 1999. By this point, I think virtually everyone tuned it out. Regardless the color scheme (which by this point, was Red, Black & White), folks were sick of Hogan running roughshod. WCW ended up being stripmined and dissolved within a year and a half. WWE won.
Speed it forward to January 4th, 2010. Actually, hold up. Let's say December 29, 2009.
WWE's still going, albeit not as strong as it was during the earlier part of this decade on Monday night. The quality of Raw has dropped to the point where TNA is actually having a three hour live show and it doesn't seem as outrageous as most believe. (If you've seen any edition of Raw since this Guest Host concept was put into play, you'd understand.) But alas, everyone's going buckwild over January 4th because for the first time in bout 11 years (as of Monday's date), we'll have wrestling options that come in the form of two seperate promotions.
Total Nonstop Action or World Wrestling Entertainment. Paper or plastic, plastic or paper.
Total Nonstop Action/3 Hour Live Telecast (First time EVER! No, seriously.)
- In case you've either been living under a boulder or just don't give a shit enough to follow or acknowledge...Hulk Hogan's back. After spending the last three to four years doing the 'Reality TV' thing with his family and having it more or less dissolve his marriage and show more of him than we ever wanted to see...Hogan's back with what got him to the dance so to speak. Wrestling. His exact capacity within TNA figures to be answered in detail this Monday, as you just can't trust dirt sheets as hard as you can wipe your ass with em'. Hulk Hogan is going to be making his first ever appearance on TNA television, but not technically his first time. Ya see, a few years ago Hogan teased an arrival in TNA while in Japan only to have Jeff Jarrett change his mind with a six stringer leaving him a bloodied mess.
This time, it's for real. There's much going on from a storyline standpoint, but I'll simply cover the two most important things first and foremost.
A) Hogan's not coming alone. One of his old nWo running mates, Kevin Nash has been a TNA mainstay for the past few years. Nash has made several innuendos to the fact that Hulk won't be coming alone. Much to the dismay of TNA's primary stockholder, Mick Foley (the man in charge of making decisions in a GM capacity)...who is rather paranoid about Hogan's impending arrival.
B) (Any wrestling fan who's been watching since 2000 will get the intense irony here.) Jeff Jarrett's return. For the last five months, Jeff Jarrett has been sight unseen on TNA television. He hasn't been injured, hasn't had any type of bereavement or the like, all that's been said is well...nothing. He has just been gone. Recently however, what was alluded to in most dirt sheets was revealed by TNA President Dixie Carter herself to be true.
Jeff Jarrett has been showing Karen Angle, Kurt's wife, who really has 'The Stroke'. (Note, of all the characters from WCW post Fingerpoke Of Doom, Jarrett is one of my Top 5 favorites.) In any event, Kurt and Jeff finally confronted each other on this matter two weeks ago and Kurt had not one word to say other than 'I have a match'. This WILL become an issue, please believe. The irony here in this whole thing is, turn the clock back some 10 years or so. What do we really remember Kurt for, besides being a Gold Medalist and 2000 King of the Ring?
You guessed it. His attempt to be "friends" with Stephanie McMahon-Helmsley. Going so far as to slap on the ever deadly Greco Roman Liplock to cement this point. (What? That's not an actual hold you say?) I imagine at some point, Angle will go Olympic on Jarrett for his infidelity. It's the 'when' that makes for interesting theater.
WWE Raw: Guest Host Bret "The Hitman" Hart
- Alright. 12 years ago, Bret left the WWE following Survivor Series 1997. Lore has it that Bret was going to leave for WCW and take the WWE Title with him on his way out. Vince didn't let that happen and in doing so, laid the groundwork for WWE to eventually run WCW out of business. In a sense, this was the wrestling equivalent of the Cowboys sending Herschel to Minnesota for a pack of beans. Right now, this is a far cry from what was 10 to 11 years ago.
A) Bret's return to WWE Raw after a 13 year absence will be the predominant storyline. The catch is, if you were born anytime before 1988, you'll get the significance behind it. Shame that the WWE's catering to the post-1988 crowd at present time.
B) Their WWE Champion isn't anything to write home about. He's pale, he has a funky flat top and he wears a Celtic Cross around his neck. Oh and this is his first taste of actual gold of any kind since joining the WWE. Last person I can recall who had such a leap was Kane and well...that didn't work out too well for him. (Rumors are that he might be facing his workout partner and good friend, Triple H at Wrestlemania XXVI presumably for the WWE Title. Not sure if that will pan out, I'm highly doubtful that it will.)
Now the Cena/Sheamus match that I thought was going down next Monday, actually went down two nights ago with a DQ finish. Title can't change hands on a DQ, so Sheamus retains but Cena wins. What we are guaranteed to see next Monday on Raw is...
Kofi Kingston vs. Randy Orton
- Randy's been terrorizing virtually everyone with a pulse that's been in his way during 2009. Nobody other than Batista, Triple H and young Kofi have actually had the balls to stand up to him. Kofi's brash defiance of the Legend Killer has perturbed and frustrated Randy to no end. Now, Randy's vowing to kick in the New Year by kicking Kofi's skull into the nosebleeds. Kofi conversely, wants to emphatically put The Viper in his place once and for all. This has actually been one of the better booked feuds of the tail end of 2009, even if the Guest Host concept killed their second head to head meeting. (Don't ask how that went.)
Unified Tag Team Champions DX (Triple H & Shawn Michaels) versus Jeri-Show (Chris Jericho & The Big Show)
- Jeri-Show won the Slammy Award for Tag Team Of The Year and it was well deserved. They were Unified Tag Team Champions up until a few weeks ago when DX unseated them at WWE's TLC PPV in a TLC match. As a result of the loss, Jericho was forced back to Smackdown while his tag team partner stayed on Raw. (Law states that as long as you're Unified Tag Team Champion, you can appear on any show at anytime. Once your reign ends, you're back on the show you belong to no questions asked.) HOWEVER...Jericho's got a rightful dispute on his hands.
The night after WWE TLC, Jeri-Show cashed in their rematch clause. DX, wanting Jericho gone for good, accepted and got themselves DQ'd after shoving the referee down on purpose. As I just stated above, Jeri-Show won the match, but not the titles. Which meant that Jericho was off Raw, seeing as that was their one and only rematch. Well, Jericho's been adamantly protesting it since and even got his partner to get him a ringside seat to this past Monday's Raw. Jericho attempted to get involved after DX's tag match with Big Show and Chavo Guerrero, but was met with Sweet Chin Music by Shawn for his troubles. Triple H having had enough of Jericho's antics, agreed to give Jeri-Show one final match for the titles under this circumstance.
Jeri-Show loses and Jericho's finished on Mondays for good. No petitions. No protests. Just Jericho, gone.
So there ya have it. Oh, forgot to mention John Cena in all this, didn't I? Well, according to John himself, he won't be on Raw next Monday night in any capacity. Apparently, he's going to be the Grand Marshall for the Fiesta Bowl parade and he will be flipping the coin at the game itself between TCU and Boise State. Go fig, right? Now all told, Monday figures to be nirvana for most wrestling fans. If for no other reason, they'll have another option to turn to should Raw start doing what it has done for the latter half of 2009. Sucking harder than a porn star. For TNA, it's a huge opportunity to put its product out there against an extremely vulnerable WWE that's nowhere near the untouchable level it thinks it is right now. As incredibly skeptical as I am about Hulk Hogan being affiliated with this product given his past track record, I'm praying he has indeed learned a thing or two from Vince and can be the Vince McMahon of TNA as he has proclaimed.
I think all can agree that wrestling's better when there's more than one show on to get your attention as it was 10 years ago. Well, so it was before January 4th, 1999 that is.
Posted 12/31/09 by Len | Filed under: Pro Wrestling
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